Moving Forward in Reverse (10 page)

I ordered and ate two lunches that day (the kitchen made a good
grilled cheese). Not chili dogs and beer, but it fit the bill. Almost before
the last bite could make its way past my throat, I was lost in the bottomless
sleep of the fatigued.

~~~

In the midst of all my harrowing progress with walking, I was also
gaining ground in the recovery of my upper body, where the process was far more
pleasurable. Zenon continued to be a regular visitor to my room and never came
without a gift. On his first return after leaving me with his meter gizmo, he
came bearing a mock-up of the myoelectric hands that I would be wearing for the
rest of my life.

‘They’re not pretty,’ he said as he laid the not yet complete
product across my lap, ‘but they’re functional.’

‘You’ve got that right. They’re far from pretty,’ I replied as I
eyed the plastic and metal monstrosities. The forearms were made of banausic
beige plastic and the hands were a set of skeletal, metal, Terminator-esque
fingers.

Zenon shrugged. ‘They’ll have rubber gloves for the hands to make
them look more human when they’re finished. And the receptors inside the arms
won’t be taped on, either. Regardless, for our purposes today, these will do
just fine. Let’s get started, yes?’ I nodded. They may not have resembled “the
original equipment,” but even at this premature stage the myos would be
preferable to using the hooks. At least I’d have fingers.

I watched as Zenon withdrew a long piece of cloth that looked like
a two-foot version of the tube part of a sock from his bag.

‘This,’ he said as he motioned for me to give him my left arm, ‘is
what we call a Pull Sock because you can use it to pull your arms on.’ He
placed the sock over my proffered arm, drawing it up to the elbow then
threading the other end into the left prosthesis and out through a hole just
above the wrist. I followed the intricate motion of his fingers and shook my
head slightly.

‘Problem number one: You’re not always going to be here to do this
for me and I can’t do all that with this.’ I held up my right arm and waved the
hand-less end in the air. He looked from me to my right arm to his hands as
they finished drawing the surplus of the Pull Sock through the forearm of the
myo.

‘We need to solve this before we go much further,’ I told him. He
was staring at the myo in his hand like a mathematician confronted with a
troublesome equation. I, too, looked at the myo,  then at the pull sock
drawn up around my arm and through the prosthesis. I figured I could feasibly
pull the sock over my arm using my teeth, but there was no way my mouth could
fit inside that arm, let alone thread a piece of cloth through a hole. What I
needed were fingers.

I glanced at the myos.
Fingers,
I thought and contemplated
the possibility of using one to don the other. But how could I do that without
already wearing the first? I was back where I started. Was I going to have to
spend the rest of my life wearing at least one arm? A life-long cast. The idea
didn’t hold much appeal.

In theory, if I could just get one of the myos on well enough for
it to be functional I might be able to fit the other securely then re-do the
first arm. That had some potential to work. But I was still left with the
problem of not having fingers dexterous enough nor an arm small enough to slide
all the way into the second arm and thread the sock through the wrist. I would
need something narrow and long to help me push the sock where it needed to go –
something that could fit through the specially cut hole in the wrist and which
I could hold and maneuver with my other hand.

‘A dowel!’ I exclaimed. ‘A quarter inch in diameter and one foot
long dowel.’ Zenon looked at me, eyes narrowed and vision turned inward as he
considered my suggestion. ‘If I could slide one arm in to use the hand of that
myo, I could use the dowel to thread the pull sock through the hole.’ Zenon
remained silent. It could work – I was sure of it! After a pause he began to
nod slowly and a sly smile spread across his face.

‘Yes. Yes, we could do that. Then you could use your teeth to pull
the sock through and secure the arm into the myo.’ When I just looked at him,
he added, ‘I’ll show you.’

He took my sock-covered left arm and slid the myo onto it, then
pulled the free end of the sock sticking out of the prosthesis until I could
feel it tugging on my arm. Gradually, he pulled it tighter and tighter until my
arm was as far into the myo as it could fit. The sock slid off my skin and out
through the hole.

I grinned and lifted my new arm. The fit was perfect. I used the
skills I’d been practicing with his meter and watched the robotic hand open and
close, open and close. It made a strange creaking sound, but what did that
matter in the face of the alternatives?

Earlier, Zenon and I had discussed adding a slight inward angle to
the right arm to better allow me to use silverware and tweaking the left arm to
create a more useful angle for using a drinking glass. After helping me into
the right arm, Zenon brought out a fork and glass and asked me to try lifting
them for him.

I felt as if I were the driver to Zenon’s race car designer and it
was time for a test drive. I could not have been more enthusiastic to comply.
With a breath to calm my excitement, I reminded myself this was serious –
somewhat serious – business and I needed to focus. Conditioned by the trials
and tribulations of the hooks, I was prepared to struggle.

After Zenon wheeled the bedside table with the utensils over my
lap, I thought of spaghetti and reached for the fork. My right hand opened wide
enough to grab the business end of a baseball bat, but I wasn’t about to be
discouraged. Thinking of the meter and a hand closing gradually, I watched as
the myo followed my commands. It was surreal to see something so disconnected
respond to my thoughts. I felt something like a mental ventriloquist,
projecting my thoughts onto an otherwise inanimate object.

The fingers pinched the stem of the fork just as I wanted them to
and when I lifted my arm to scoop imaginary pasta, the utensil was pointing
into the bowl without me having to tweak the angle. Bringing the invisible
forkful of food to my mouth demonstrated similar results. The angle was
perfect!

Zenon and I beamed at each other like two kids watching a science
experiment perform to expectations.

‘They’re spot on,’ I told him and almost belatedly remembered to
test the left arm. ‘Spot on,’ I repeated when the glass met my mouth without
trouble.

‘Super!’ he whooped, collecting his glass and fork. ‘That’s great
news. Really! I hadn’t anticipated it going this well. That only leaves us with
attaching the receptors and waiting for your gloves to arrive.

Okay, then. Let’s take these off and I’ll get back to work.’ As he
held out his hand for one of the arms, I felt a fleeting sadness at our
impending separation. A part of me wanted to ask if I could keep them just
until dinner time – give me one meal not using the hooks and he could have them
tomorrow.

Smirking at my own lunacy, I placed the left myo in his arm. He
tugged it off like removing a tall boot and left me pondering how I was going
to do that without his helpful hands.

When both prosthetics were safely back in his case, Zenon stood up
and brushed a hand across the creases in his slacks.

‘Expect me back soon.’

~~~

Three days later, he came bearing the greatest gift of all: fully
assembled, rubber-gloved myoelectric hands –
my
fully assembled,
rubber-gloved myoelectric hands. The designer was rolling out the final
product.

I grinned like a child on Easter as he placed the hands before me.
The rubber of the gloves was too smooth to truly resemble skin and didn’t match
my skin tone nor the shade of the plastic forearm, but I didn’t care. After
dueling with the hooks for the past month, anything remotely human in construction
was a boon. Someone had even taken the time to draw on pseudo fingernails of
the type you find on girl’s dolls.

As a special treat, Zenon also produced three, foot long, quarter
inch thick dowels which he had bought from a local hardware store. ‘In case you
break one – or two.’ he said.

I thanked him enthusiastically and frequently as he helped me
navigate through donning my arms for the first time without help. I was clumsy
and stumbled through the process – rolling the arms haphazardly across my lap,
dropping the dowel, not pulling the sock on far enough, and otherwise making a
bit of a mess of things – but in the end, I had hands. Eight fingers and two
thumbs: What more could a guy ask for?

12

With fully-functional myoelectric hands now at my disposal, I
could think of only two things I wanted: a spiral notebook and a pen.

It was time to start writing a coaching manual to help solve the
issue of my no longer being able to demonstrate the techniques of play by providing
a direction. To start, I would need a second assistant coach to focus on
technical skills while I managed tactics, scouting, and match evaluation, but
the adjustments would need to extend past there.

Rattling around in my brain since my time in the ICU was a
little ditty I titled 
The Soccer Atlas: Where are we going and how are
we going to get there?
. It would be an atlas for winning the National
Championship. During the past two months I had written nearly the entire
booklet in my head and was relieved to let it start squirting out onto paper. I
was surprised to find I had no difficulty writing with the myos. The letters
were legible and my speed was good. Finally, a task I could do just as well
post-illness as before

In the days and weeks that followed, I became totally immersed in
constructing the Atlas. Every spare minute was spent transcribing The Atlas
into my notebook. Typically these moments came in the evenings, so it was
really no surprise that I was frowning over my notebook when he shouted my
name.

‘Wonder!’

I flinched, startled out of the present by my old, high school
nickname. I’d been dubbed Wonder Boy by my senior gym class after I
had struck a bicycle kick for a goal. This was at my new high school in
Port Edwards where football, baseball, and basketball reigned supreme; most had
probably never even heard of a bicycle kick, let alone seen one. The
comparative soccer hot bed of Wisconsin Rapids where I had transferred from was
just a few miles away, and I continued to play for the club team there under
the direction of high school German teacher, Klaus Kroner, who developed more
than teams, but a family among the players. Thanks to some of my soccer
teammates dating girls from Port Edwards, the nickname followed me across city
lines. Luckily, the word Boy was removed and the name didn’t follow me to
college.  

I looked up to see a burly man with reddish hair steering a
wheelchair chaotically through the door and my jaw dropped.
Jim?
It
couldn’t be. Then came another ‘Wonder!’ from the doorway as a long-legged man
with an all-knowing smile curving his lips sauntered in.
Barry? Holy crap!
Jim, Barry, and I had played ten seasons together. We had won countless matches
together. Ours was a brotherhood formed on shared passions and long years of
camaraderie.

Before I could even greet this blast from my past, two more
bulwarks came barreling through the door: the strong man from Germany, our
steadfast goalkeeper Rainer; and another of our staunch back line: Jeff Dix
with his brown jacket draped over a brawny forearm and sporting a new tuft of
thick, dark mustache.

I was dumbfounded. These guys lived a solid two hours away. Had
they really just driven all this way to see me?

My mom had told me that when I was in the coma a bunch of my old
teammates – this motley crew, plus other former teammates, Willy, Tappy, and
Stuart, and Coach Kroner – had heard that I was sick and came to visit,
thinking I was heading towards death. This was the first time I was awake to
see any of the old team, though – and for them, the first time they didn’t need
to fear for my life.

‘Geet your lazy ass outta bet, man,’ Rainer commanded, his thick
German accent taking assertive and demanding to a whole new level. ‘We’re going
out!’

‘What? Where’d you get that wheelchair?’

Jim smirked and shrugged. ‘Eh, we made a deal with the head lady
out there,’ he replied, gesturing over his shoulder to the hallway outside. I
assumed by ‘head lady’ he meant Carolyn, the head nurse on duty. ‘Promised to
keep you in the chair, got it?’

I just laughed. With how much pain walking caused me, I didn’t
anticipate wanting to deviate from that plan.

‘So, where should we go?’ Jim asked.

Finally something I had an answer to: ‘The Camaraderie. I’ve been
Jonesin for some fried cheese curds.’

There seemed to be no objection to ‘fried cheese curds’ so Jim
stationed the wheelchair by my bed. Barry helped me oust myself from the covers
and looped his long arms around my chest to hoist me into the chair. Jim took
hold of the handles and steered me out of the room with a tad more care than
he’d handled the empty wheelchair.

On the way past, Carolyn called out from behind the nurses’
station. ‘Hey! Remember our deal, all right?’

‘We promise he’ll stay in the chair,’ Jim said to appease her,
‘but we can’t guarantee in what condition he’ll return.’

~~~

It had been months since my last alcoholic drink.  With two
Rum and Coke’s down, I was sliding effortlessly past tipsy into drunk. I may
have broken a glass accidentally (a casualty of my unfamiliarity with the myos)
and caused a bit of a raucous with the guys, but I did stay put in my
wheelchair for the duration of the outing. Being out – truly out, not just
somewhere between a soccer field and the hospital – was intoxicating in itself.
The sense of jubilation and confidence that came with being in the company of
close friends combined with more than a few drinks left no room for concerns.
It didn’t matter if I was the only guy in a wheelchair, or that I didn’t have
hands, because what I did have was the buffering companionship of my soccer
family. Stationed between them, I was the same old Wonder.

It was a simple thing, a night out with friends, but buoyed by
their joviality and buffered by our easy camaraderie, I thought I could feel a
subtle shifting of direction inside of me; the pendulum of my life beginning to
swing forward again.

Across the assortment of various appetizers and drinks spewed the
stories of our past times together. Politics and religion played no part in our
banter. ‘Do you remember the time. . .’ was a common opening. ‘Have you heard
from. . .’ was there, too. We discussed the World Cup that was coming to the
United States, our plans to attend the opener in Chicago, and our continued
frustration with the style of play by the US Men’s Team. The years apart were
no more a factor in our ever-changing storyline than politics were; we never
missed a beat in our ability to sit and bullshit about everything.

Everything except my handicap, that is. I don’t know if they were
being polite or read my attitude, but the illness was never a topic of
discussion. And what a refreshing break it was.

As promised, I returned securely belted into the wheelchair but
still a bit toasted. After the guys left, I leaned back and reveled in the
long-forgotten sensation of being truly relaxed. It felt so good to be
carefree; to have all my fears silenced for once by the alcohol thrumming
through my veins. I thought about going back to my old life in my new condition
and felt only eager anticipation. I thought about walking and the pain I’d
endured and felt nothing. No pangs of anxiety or sense of dread. With the taste
of rum and Coke still on my tongue, I felt invincible. I could walk. I had
walked up and down nine flights of stairs, damn it. So why did sober me fear it
so much?
Pansy,
I thought of my timid alter ego.
Grow a pair, would
you?

I snickered drunkenly until the pansy retorted:
Look who’s
talking. You just spent an evening getting sloshed in a wheelchair. Real brave,
you are.

And he was right – I was right. I couldn’t just claim
invincibility and fearlessness. I needed to prove it. I looked to the door;
considered the hallway beyond.

Why the hell not?

I threw the covers off my legs and slid my feet to the floor.
Without hesitation, I pushed myself up from the bed until I was standing. I
bobbled slightly – which I attributed to the alcohol – and had to take a moment
to balance myself on the bedrail, but then I was up! I was standing on my own
two feet and would you believe I felt no pain?

Grinning dopily, I started to walk towards the door. I was going
to give the nurses one heck of a show. Before making it out of the room, my
eyes lighted on floppy, faux fur ears. The bunny slippers my little sister,
Lisa, had sent me. On a whim I slipped my feet in them and continued to the
door.

I came sauntering out of my room without difficulty. Balance
always having been a strong point of mine, I had no trouble walking on feet
half their former size. As I reached the nurses’ station I found Carolyn and
the fluff of reddish curls that adorned Cheryl’s head bent over a chart.

I lifted my nose and said somewhat smoothly, ‘Hello, ladies.
What’s up?’

They both looked up and I got the distinct pleasure of watching
two sets of eyeballs bulge. Carolyn did a double take, shaking her head and
blinking to make sure I was really there.

‘Looks like you are,’ she responded. ‘All six feet of you.’

I grinned as Cheryl rushed around the desk to help me. I backed
away from the counter before she could reach me, though, to show that I was
stable – a little drunk, but stable.

‘Well, look at you,’ Cheryl said when I declined her help.

‘Yup,’ I said and twirled my way down the hall with Cheryl by my
side, ready to rescue me if I started to fall. I made it all the way back to my
bed without even a hint of losing my balance and let Cheryl help me kick off my
slippers and slide into the covers.

Once safely in the confines of my hospital bed, Cheryl handed me
an envelope with my mother’s handwriting on it and news print protruding from
it.

‘Came today,’ she said and left me to my reading with a
good-natured shake of her head at my audacity. I pulled away the envelope to
find an article clipped from the Oshkosh Northwestern, the daily newspaper out
of Oshkosh, Wisconsin where I’d attended college. The familiar grey beard and
dark brown hair of the paper’s editor, Jim Metz, were pictured above the
right-hand column. The title read, “As undergraduate, he made mark on Oshkosh.”

‘Hm,’ I said and reclined against my pillows to read:

Seldom does a person come to UW-Oshkosh as an undergraduate and
put a permanent mark on the lives of hundreds of Oshkosh people before
graduating.

Scott Martin did. I am one he touched.

I was honored by the first lines and struck to the point of tears
by the next few. Bleary eyed, I continued.

When classmates got to know Oshkosh night life, Scott got involved
with the then fledgling Oshkosh Youth Soccer Club.

His first year, 1980, he coached two teams, one 8- and
9-year-olds, the other 10- and 11-year-olds. The next year he was elected to
the board of directors, and it was here I met him.

He did not introduce me to soccer, but immersed me in it. He not
only coached, but he also officiated.

I looked away and wiped my eyes. I was stunned.

I joined him in the task of recruiting and training and scheduling
the referees.

It may have seemed unusual, the young college athlete allied with
this paunchy middle ager, but we put a great deal of effort into our duties.

In 1983 Scott was elected president of the club, presiding over an
ever-enlarging program. And when it was difficult to find enough coaches, he
took on more of that responsibility. One season he coached four teams. That’s
about 70 youngsters under the supervision of this college student who went to
practices and games all around the city on a bike.

His dedication was total, his example inspiring.

I had to pause again, this time for a chuckle at the memory of me
pedaling everywhere I went and the thought of all the responsibility I carried
without a thought to its weight.

Jim went on to write about my bout with the flesh-eating disease
and the article took on a different tone:

Scott Martin is now mending.

He’s being fitted with artificial arms. He’s undergoing intensive
therapy, both occupational and physical.

And he’s active in coaching his team. Even from his hospital bed
their playing and their success are not just on Martin’s mind, they’re
receiving his instruction, his insight, his special inspiration.

The sheet of newsprint wavered in my grasp. Slowly, I lowered it
to my lap and felt my mind drift back in time: back to Jerry Stark, my coach at
UW-Oshkosh who convinced me to start coaching; back to Fred Werner who hired me
as his assistant coach at Oshkosh West High School shortly after my graduation;
and back, of course, to all those kids that I coached and by now had kids of
their own playing soccer.

I sucked in a ragged breath and let my hands fall to my lap. Here
was proof to myself of what I was capable of doing. I shuddered at the thought
that this could have been my obituary.